


you and I, survivors of the same kind

by armethaumaturgy



Series: Reqs [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Communication, Cross (X-tale) - Freeform, Cross-centric, Dust (Dusttale) - Freeform, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Horror (Horrortale) - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Killer (Killertale) - Freeform, M/M, Nightmare (Dreamtale) - Freeform, bad sans poly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29296803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: Cross did not want to be here.In fact, he would have rather been anywhere but here, sat down at the dining table like a little kid about to be scolded. But Nightmare had ordered them all to come, and Cross wasn’t about to disobey an order over his own unease.Despite calling them, Nightmare was the last one to enter the dining room, head held high and obviously peeved. Cross didn’t even need to see his tentacles lashing wildly behind him to figure that one out.
Relationships: Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Series: Reqs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151672
Comments: 20
Kudos: 178





	you and I, survivors of the same kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avosettas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avosettas/gifts).



> for my lovely friend bee!! cross getting some much needed comfort♥♥  
> title taken from a line of alan walker's "ignite"

Cross did not want to be here.

In fact, he would have rather been anywhere  _ but  _ here, sat down at the dining table like a little kid about to be scolded. But Nightmare had ordered them all to come, and Cross wasn’t about to disobey an order over his own unease.

Despite calling them, Nightmare was the last one to enter the dining room, head held high and obviously peeved. Cross didn’t even need to see his tentacles lashing wildly behind him to figure that one out.

Everyone seemed on edge, now that he thought about it, throwing glances his way here and there, and he had no idea why. The moment Nightmare passed him on the way to his seat, Cross could feel the negativity following the guardian like a physical weight pressing onto his shoulders. He didn’t even dare breathe.

Nightmare sat down, twining his fingers together to rest his chin on them. His eye glanced over all of them, narrowed, and Cross suddenly cursed the table being circular, because there was nowhere to hide or look when the seafoam eyelight landed on him. He forced himself to stay still and not fidget.

“I suppose we all know why we’ve gathered here?” he asked, though his inflection was so nonexistent it might as well have been a statement. Cross’ gaze flitted around the table; everyone had nodded, which only made him feel more paranoid that he had screwed up somehow. 

Maybe Nightmare had finally grown tired of him — of how  _ weak  _ Cross was compared to all of them — and he’d kick him out, back into the endless white of his ruined universe? His hands fisted the hem of his shorts the second Nightmare’s eyelight returned to him, looking like it could peer all the way to his SOUL. 

Which, technically, it could.

“Cross.”

“Y-Yeah, boss?” Cross cursed the little stutter in his voice. And the fact that it came out choked. And also the fact that the fear was getting to him.

“Every day for the past week, I woke up and felt despair and guilt,” Nightmare said, “Do you really think I want  _ your  _ feelings in exchange for power? We talked over this.”

Nightmare’s tentacles whipping around betrayed more than his tone ever would. Cross’ guilt mounted the longer he held the other’s gaze.

“What’s wrong, Cross?”

“Nothing,” he replied, too fast. He realized his mistake too late, when Nightmare's eye steeled from where it’d fallen into something softer.

The guardian stood up, his chair clattering to the floor. “Do you think you can lie to  _ me _ ?!”

He slammed his hands on the table and leaned over it, too close for Cross not to flinch.

“I did not take you from that wasteland for this! I did not take you for mine for you to suffer! You’re  _ mine _ ,” Nightmare hissed, a tentacle winding itself around Cross’ chest like he’d even  _ think  _ about escaping. “And what’s mine is  _ taken care of _ . So we can either do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your choice.”

The tentacle squeezed, knocking air out of Cross’ nonexistent lungs, but it was simply a warning. Cross looked away, hunching over himself as much as he could.

Everyone was looking at him expectantly; Cross opened his mouth and no sound came out, an invisible lump lodged where his throat would be. Instead, tears sprung into his eyesockets, tears that he desperately blinked away.

While yes, loneliness and longing for his universe, for his  _ brother _ , for the good old days (no matter how fake and scripted he knew them to be now) had been creeping up on him recently, along with the guilt of destroying it all, he’d been forcing them down. He thought he’d been doing a good job of it, too, but no matter how well he could fool anyone else, he couldn’t fool someone who knew exactly how he felt.

But it was a silly thing to go to someone about, when all of their problems were  _ real _ , and more important than his little hang up.

“It’s… not as important,” he said finally, barely a whisper, because he couldn’t find a way to word his jumbled, scattered thoughts.

Nightmare’s tentacle tore down one of the drapes framing the window.

“As important as  _ what _ , exactly?!”

The others had stood up by now. Killer was on Nightmare in a blink of an eye, one hand on his shoulder and the other tracing along the outstretched tentacle. “Boss. Night, that’s ‘nough.”

Horror and Dust had moved to stand on either side of Cross, and it should’ve been claustrophobic. It was welcome, instead.

Nightmare bristled, looking between Cross and Killer like he couldn't decide which of them he wanted to impale on a tentacle. But he gradually calmed down, stopped gripping the table like it'd personally insulted him.

"Applesauce," Horror spoke up, placing a hand onto Cross' shoulder. He was ashamed of how much it startled him. "What'd you mean...? What's important?"

And high on adrenaline as Cross felt, he couldn't do much else than laugh. Everyone was looking at him as he chuckled, the sound wet with the tears he'd forcibly shoved down. 

"It's stupid," he forced out, breathless and shaking. He stared down at his own lap, at his hands that couldn't stop gripping at his shorts, because it was easier than facing any of them. "It's so stupid." His shoulders shook; there was no real distinguishing between sobs and chuckles anymore. "I just... miss my world. And you all have  _ real  _ problems, and it's... so fucking stupid."

Nightmare's tentacles lashed out again, and there went the other set of drapes. "Yes, your suffering is  _ stupid _ ," he hissed.

" _ Boss _ ."

Everyone but Killer deigned to ignore Nightmare's outburst. Dust swatted at the air before scowling down at Cross. "You shouldn't bottle up negative feelings," he said, "Night hates that."

"But it's stupid!" Cross felt like a broken record, but he couldn't think of another way to describe it. "You're all been through more than me, and— and what? I'm supposed to whine about losing a universe?"

"Breathe," Horror told him, rubbing over his back, and Cross realized that he was hyperventilating. His ribcage stuttered with jerky gasps. He tried to match his breathing to Horror's, at his prompt, but it took a while for him to calm down, somewhat.

They were all watching him with concern now, crowding around him. Nightmare's tentacles were no longer poised to attack, but they did wiggle, like he was holding them back.

"It's not a competition," Dust said, one hand on Cross' chin to make sure he'd look him in the sockets.

Cross would deny it to everyone, but hearing Dust — who had arguably been fucked up the most out of all of them — say that eased some part of Cross that screamed about not being worthy of concern.

Fresh tears gathered in his eyesockets, and he was pulled out of his chair by Horror, who crushed him against his chest, his own way of saying the same thing Dust had.

"You... deserve to get comfort, applesauce," he muttered, as Dust squished behind him. Then Killer bumped into them, resting his chin on top of Cross' skull.

"We're all fucked up different," was what he told them, the shrug accompanying the words apparent, even if it was stifled by Nightmare's tentacles winding around them all.

"Let it out, Cross," Nightmare said, and before Cross could tense up, he added, "That's not an order. It's a request."

So, as stupid as he felt, crying and sandwiched between four other bodies, he told them all about Crown, all about the days spent with Frisk, all about how he wished he'd never caused his world's demise. And by the end, he felt a little better, and there were no snips about how much easier he'd had it in life.

By the time he was finally released from the embraces, there was a small, miniscule part of him that believed he wasn't any lesser than the others.


End file.
